Fred was born and raised on a small orange grove plantation in Covina, California. His mother, Gertrude Hancock and father Frederick W Preston were married the summer of 1920, and were blessed with Fred a year later. Fred was born without the lower part of his left arm just past the elbow. At the age of 12, his father suddenly passed away from prostate cancer at the height of the depression.
Suddenly Fred was the man of the house. He had to take care of the orchard, help his mother and still find time to complete his studies. Fred completed high school in 1938 and was accepted to the engineering curriculum at UCLA in Berkley, CA. Upon his graduation in the summer of 1942, he was recruited and hired by the General Electric Company to design components for steam propulsion engines used for electrical power generation. In 1946 while traveling around for the company he met his future wife Orleen L Koennecke. After a year and a half courtship, they were married in April of 1947. Shortly after, they bought their first home in Mojave, CA and Fred was promoted to the GE jet engine propulsion division. He was one of the chief design engineers developing the J-79 jet engine that was used in the F80, F86, F89, F100, and the F4 Phantom fighter planes of the 1950’s & 60’s.
In June of 1948 they had their first son George Frederick, and in September of 1949 they had another son Ronald Bryne. Fred continued to advance within the company and moved first into the LA area for 5 years, then on to Huntington, NY for 10 years, where he got into politics, by getting elected to the town council. Then they moved on to Bethesda, MD for 2 years, and Cincinnati, OH for another 5 years. At this point the boys graduated from high school and went on to college, while Fred and Orleen went on to Boston, MA, Paris France, and Greenville, NC. In the summer of 1985 Fred retired from GE and moved to Wilsonville, OR.
After retiring, Fred kept busy consulting for GE and other companies, and began volunteering for SCORE and the Salvation Army. He and Orleen also began managing and harvesting timber from a 1000 acre tree farm they had inherited some 20 years prior to his retirement. He enjoyed playing golf, flying kites, traveling and visits with his grand children. They were very generous people. They provided the Salvation Army with funds to construct a resource center and repair a bridge at their Camp Kuratli in Barton, OR., and they donated to the Meridian Park Hospital in Tualatin, OR to build an addition. Fred started the Salvation Army’s Box Program in 1986 to help feed the hungry. They went site seeing on organized tours and cruises that took them all over the world. In 1999 they turned the tree farm over to George and Ron to manage, so they could have more time to travel around while they were both healthy. In 2005, Orleen was diagnosed with bone cancer, and she passed away just before their 60th wedding anniversary in April of 2007.
During his grief and while attending the Lake Grove Presbyterian Church, he met Susan J Grant whom was also grieving the loss of her husband. They began a relationship and in August of 2010 they were married. They began to travel around the world and in 2012 decided they needed to downsize and move into a retirement center. They sold the house and moved into the Stafford Avamere in Lake Oswego, OR and continued to travel, and he continued his volunteer programs. After a fall in 2015, Fred moved to the Avamere in Sandy, OR to be closer to his son Ron, and Susan whom was suffering from dementia moved to a facility in Lacey, WA to be closer to her daughter Jeniphr Grant.
Fred always was very humble about his accomplishments. His favorite saying to younger folks was; “Make sure you are having fun with everything you do, so you get the maximum out of your job, yourself, and life in general.” He is survived by his wife Susan, sons George and Ron, and their extended families.